Years ago, when watching the Food Network, I quickly found my favourites: the quirky chef, the one who helped us navigate meals in a short span of time, and Ina, who was always a welcome visitor. Whether it was the relevance of the show's location to my world, her empathetic joyful demeanor, or the deliciousness coming out of her kitchen, I don’t know, but I’ve always been a fan of Ina. Somehow, the title of her new book, Be Ready When Luck Happens, resonated…and it made me think how often we’ve ever considered our availability and accessibility to making our own luck and magic. 

When was the last time you wondered about luck?

Whether you’re in tune with your own energy, feel a kinship with the signs of the Universe, or feel like you’ve often hit it big when it comes to luck in your life, there’s something mystical about its nature—and how, maybe we can manufacture some of our own luck or at least be prepared for whenever it shows up. 

In the northern hemisphere, we’re in the throes of summer. Camps are still going strong, depending on your location, school is either weeks or days away, and there’s that space between summer’s frivolity and the planning for all things autumn where we beach in the morning and sit with our planners at night. 

Perhaps you’ve felt it before, that energetic frizzle where luck and life collide, and you are the fortunate one in its path. Perhaps you’ve witnessed it in friends, family, or on a giant movie screen. Maybe, just maybe, we can cultivate a little of luck’s gifts into our world.

You in?

As we make our way towards the latter half of the year, many of us open our journals, planners, and list-making tools to write what’s been awesome this year, what we’d like to accomplish or get to, and the dreams we’re working towards in the future. Perhaps you dream of your own brick and mortar restaurant, making that team, or finally booking that ticket for that bucket list adventure. Perhaps you’re hoping to add meditation and exercise to your regular rotation, create a window of self-care time in your schedule, or try your hand at that new hobby that’s long sat on your to-do list. 

Whatever you’re interested in, how can we manufacture the opportunities for possibilities to find you, and how can we ready our nervous systems to be open when that luck really does happen?

Some manifest with the best of intentions, some create vision boards putting their hopes and dreams into visual tapestries, and others write out their desires and hoist them into the Universe in flames of glory. However you share those hopes for tomorrow that are ricocheting around in your brain, when the possibility arises for that thing, are you ready?

Can you say yes even if you’re shaky? Can you take the plunge even when you don’t know the ending of the story? Can you lean into that big picture thinking and stumble if you must into that let’s do it kind of attitude? 

The toddler sees a puddle and jumps right in, the young child sees a swing and pumps as high as their legs will take them, the teenager finds a surfboard and challenges themselves to patience and maybe even drops in on the next wave: no waiting, no hemming and hawing and letting the brain take over, but moving with intention when those moments show up. 

Whether we’re that new learner or the later in life one, can we be willing to take the leap when the things we’ve wanted (but perhaps haven’t voiced yet) show up in front of us begging us to do so? 

There are months left to this year and a lifetime of more moments ahead. 

Give yourself permission to dream big, set those thoughts to motion, and lean into the life you wish to create. 

Sure, hitting big in the lottery might be the kind of luck that’s out of our hands, but thousands upon thousands of luck instances are within our reach. Curate what you can, set yourself up for those chances to find you, and when they do, get ready to say yes. 

The magic is within you - luck will find you. Put your pouncing shoes by the door…your time is now. 

4 tips to be prepared for luck encounters

“Success is not a straight line. It’s much more of a dance and being open to possibilities” - Arianna Huffington

Be prepared! How to grow your mindset

“I believe luck is preparation meeting opportunity. If you hadn’t been prepared when the opportunity came along, you wouldn’t have been lucky” - Oprah Winfrey

Science tells us that neuroplasticity (our brain’s ability to adapt and change) is possible. We re-learn how to do things long forgotten, can challenge our doubts to try and love new things, and when perspective shifts arise, we can completely change how we enter the world. 

If we can learn to pickleball, pottery, and play the drums after a lifetime of not knowing how, we can do the same with our way of looking at life. 

Happiness expert and NYT best-selling author Gretchen Rubin offers multiple methods to grow, shift, and inject happiness into our sphere of influence. The same can be done with luck. First, we might need to engage those mindset muscles and potentially flip a switch.

Her suggestion when working on decisions, doubts, and dealings: “choose the bigger life.” 

Sometimes we give strength to those aching doubts, refusing to let in the light of possibility. Sometimes we create list after list unable to attain a lightbulb moment through the muck and mire. 

But asking ourselves which offers that bigger life is perhaps the switch that opens the door, opens the mind, and unveils options we might have otherwise missed. While your mindset grows, so do your choices…and perhaps, just maybe, the luck finds you more easily.

Plant the seeds: where action and manifesting meet

“When it comes to luck, you make your own” - Bruce Springsteen

We plant seeds all the time. Sometimes it’s in our minds, sometimes in the ground, sometimes it even makes it out of our mouths, onto paper, and into the world. Regardless, we’re always planting them. Whether they’re dreams, designs, ideas, thoughts, festerings, or long-held things kept tucked on those secret ‘things I’d like to do when’ lists, we plant them. Sometimes, they manifest into reality.

A friend of mine told me she doesn’t give energy to worry or thinking; she likes to take action quickly. Her zest and action-taking mindset quashes worry before it has the chance to take hold. We could all use a little of that taking action mindset to give our dreams flight. 

Years ago, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and its sequel brought acting powerhouses together and dropped them into a new world of retirement abroad. With the likes of Dame Maggie Smith and Dame Judi Dench, it’s unsurprising that its humor, wit, and lessons took hold of all audiences. Amongst the big picture thinking, growth mindset of most, and epic adventure of resilience in action, life lessons abound. The stellar star power offered wisdom at every turn with a few zingers about doing new things, turning desires to reality, and growing those seeds into fruits. “I don’t know if I’m excited or terrified,” Judi Dench’s character Evelyn exclaims. “Sometimes it seems to me that the difference between what we want and what we fear is the width of an eyelash.” 

And in a nod to growing those dreams of the past into present and future reality, her character tells that of her youthful friend, “you can have anything you want, Sonny. You just need to stop waiting for someone to tell you you deserve it.” When Dame Judi Dench speaks, we all listen.

Stay curious & be on the lookout for magic 

“If you are not willing to risk the unusual, you will have to settle for the ordinary” - Jim Rohn

I look for hearts in nature, talk to butterflies, and always say yes to watch the sunset. I have friends who paint on rocks, some who volunteer to walk shelter dogs, and others who spend their days offering encouragement to fledgling writers. In each action, there’s a nod to magic seeking, joy opportunities, and exploration to find something to either light you up or a way to do that for others. 

How do you stay curious? 

Have you ever watched Harvard professor Ellen Langer’s discussion on decision making? Known as the mother of mindfulness, she urges all deciders to ditch the stress, regret, and the angst of making decisions. She teaches her students the benefits of less mindlessness and more mindfulness, choosing one thing vs the other quickly without perseverating on it all, and realizing that just because we might ‘think’ that the choice we didn’t take might have been a better one doesn’t make it so.

She opens up time and space for more curiosity, more wonder, and more opportunities to arise. 

So, whether you’re gaining back the time you might have hemmed and hawed over a decision, planning space in your calendar to dream, savor, play, or learn something new, or making the conscious choice to take an awe walk and keep your eyes open for curiosity, when you invite the magic in, don’t be surprised when it actually arrives. 

Look for the good, greet possibilities with open arms

“Chance favors the prepared mind” - Louis Pasteur

Chase, Chance, & Creativity: The Lucky Art of Novelty, written in 1978 by neurologist Dr. James Austin, surmised that there are four types of luck: luck from uniqueness, luck from awareness, luck from motion, and blind luck.

Luck, the thing that occurs out of chance and not particularly through actions of our own making, is what we wish to be ready for: the good stuff, the possibilities, the moments that make your heart soar, and the ones that feel like winnings. 

It could be those totally random occurrences (like the lottery), the spoils from a nudge you put in play, the merger of experience and intuition, or the kind that’s formed because of who you are and what you’re able to offer. It’s these moments we want to cultivate, open the door for, and create a space that’s welcoming for them to enter. Like Gretchen Rubin’s “choose the bigger life,” we might enhance these luck moments when we consider which “path…has a larger luck surface area.” 

Can we look for the good, take notice of the situations we put ourselves in, envision that bigger story, and create an environment for possibilities to arise? 

Can we channel that growth mindset to invite those chances to enter our worlds? 

Whether in school, work, play, or that wider life, if we’re ready to greet those possibilities with open arms, we just might, as Ina says, “be ready when luck happens.”

“Luck is when preparation meets opportunity” - Brian Tracy

Please click the photo below for a collection of my Through the Eyes of an Educator columns:

Stacey Ebert, our Educational Travels Editor, is a traveler at heart who met her Australian-born husband while on a trip in New Zealand. Stacey was an extracurricular advisor and taught history in a Long Island public high school for over fifteen years, enjoying both the formal and informal educational practices. After a one year 'round the world honeymoon, travel and its many gifts changed her perspective. She has since left the educational world to focus on writing and travel. She is energetic and enthusiastic about long term travel, finding what makes you happy and making the leap. In her spare time she is an event planner, yogi, dark chocolate lover, and spends as much time as possible with her toes in the sand.

Check out her website at thegiftoftravel.wordpress.com for more of her travel musings.